Processing user-submitted updates based on user reliability scores

ABSTRACT

Processing user-submitted updates based on user reliability scores is described. A system calculates an update score, for an update submitted by a user, based on a similarity of a field value provided by the update to corresponding field values in identified records. The system calculates a user score based on update scores, including the update score, calculated for corresponding updates submitted by the user. The system processes the update based on the user score.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 61/891,619 entitled, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROCESSINGUSER UPDATES BASED ON USER RELIABILITY SCORES, by Matthew Fuchs, filedOct. 16, 2013, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein byreference.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not beassumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in thebackground section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the backgroundsection or associated with the subject matter of the background sectionshould not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the priorart. The subject matter in the background section merely representsdifferent approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.

Crowd-sourced database system users can update a database by creating,modifying, or deleting data, such as business contacts. However, not alluser-submitted updates are equally reliable because some users' updatescan create bad data that can pollute the database. Therefore, a databasesystem may need to assess the likely reliability of a user-submittedupdate to determine whether or not to apply the user-submitted update tothe database. However, a database system may have very littleinformation about many of the users updating data, and a significantamount of time may pass before the database system can definitivelydetermine whether a user-submitted update created bad data in thedatabase.

BRIEF SUMMARY

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided systems and methodsfor processing user-submitted updates based on user reliability scores.An update score is calculated, for an update submitted by a user, basedon similarity of a field value provided by the update to correspondingfield values in identified records. A user score is calculated based onupdate scores, including the update score, calculated for correspondingupdates submitted by the user. The update is processed based on the userscore.

For example, a system calculates a update reliability score for anupdate submitted by a user for street address field in a businesscontact record based on how similar the submitted street address is tothe distribution of values for street address fields included ininactive business contact records, and how similar the submitted streetaddress is to the distribution of values for street address fieldsincluded in active business contact records. The system accumulates allof the update reliability scores for the user, and divides theaccumulation of the updates reliability scores by the number of updatessubmitted by the user to calculate the user's reliability score. If thedatabase system calculates a user reliability score that is lower than arejection threshold, the database system rejects the update submitted bythe user for the address field in the business contact record.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described withreference to an embodiment in which processing user-submitted updatesbased on user reliability scores is implemented in a system having anapplication server providing a front end for an on-demand databaseservice capable of supporting multiple tenants, the one or moreimplementations and techniques are not limited to multi-tenant databasesnor deployment on application servers. Embodiments may be practicedusing other database architectures, i.e., ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and thelike without departing from the scope of the embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassedwithin this specification may also include embodiments that are onlypartially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to atall in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although variousembodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with theprior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places inthe specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any ofthese deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may addressdifferent deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Someembodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just onedeficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and someembodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following drawings like reference numbers are used to refer tolike elements. Although the following figures depict various examples,the one or more implementations are not limited to the examples depictedin the figures.

FIG. 1 is an operational flow diagram illustrating a high level overviewof a method for processing user-submitted updates based on userreliability scores, in an embodiment;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example data structure for update scoresand a user reliability score for processing user-submitted updates basedon user reliability scores, in an embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an example of an environmentwherein an on-demand database service might be used; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of elements of FIG.3 and various possible interconnections between these elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION General Overview

Systems and methods are provided for processing user-submitted updatesbased on user reliability scores. As used herein, the term multi-tenantdatabase system refers to those systems in which various elements ofhardware and software of the database system may be shared by one ormore customers. For example, a given application server maysimultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and agiven database table may store rows for a potentially much greaternumber of customers. As used herein, the term query plan refers to a setof steps used to access information in a database system. Next,mechanisms and methods for processing user-submitted updates based onuser reliability scores will be described with reference to exampleembodiments. The following detailed description will first describe amethod for processing user-submitted updates based on user reliabilityscores. Next, a block diagram of a data structure for processinguser-submitted updates based on user reliability scores is described.

FIG. 1 is an operational flow diagram illustrating a high level overviewof a method 100 for processing user-submitted updates based on userreliability scores. As shown in FIG. 1, a database system may processuser-submitted updates based on user reliability scores.

A database system calculates an update score for an update submitted bya user based on similarity of a field value provided by the update tocorresponding field values in identified records, block 102. For exampleand without limitation, this can include the database system calculatinga update reliability score for an update submitted by a user for thestreet address field in a business contact record based on how similarthe submitted street address is to the distribution of values for streetaddress fields included in bad business contact records, and how similarthe submitted street address is to the distribution of values for streetaddress fields included in good business contact records. A blockdiagram of an example data structure for update reliability scores and auser reliability score for processing user-submitted updates based onuser reliability scores is depicted in FIG. 2 and described below in thedescription of FIG. 2. The database system evaluates updates submittedby a user based on how the submitted update appears when compared toprevious user-submitted updates of known quality.

The database system identifies some data records as good data recordsand identifies other data records as bad data records to enable thecomparison of a user-submitted update to user updates of knownreliability. For example, most of the business contact records that werepurchased by system users are active records which can be considered asgood data records produced by reliable user updates because a purchasinguser is likely to complain to a system administrator if a businesscontact record includes bad data. In another example, most of thebusiness contact records that were inactivated by the database systemcan be considered as bad data records produced by unreliable userupdates because most of the business contact records were inactivated,or grave-yarded, by the database system due to the identification of baddata in the business contact records. The database system canimmediately evaluate some user-submitted updates as bad, such as when auser-submitted update adds unnecessary punctuation.

For each record, the database system may then use the field valuereliability scores for the record's field values to calculate thelikelihood that the record is a good data record based on the record'ssimilarity to good data records, such as purchased business contactrecords. Likewise, the database system may then use the field valuereliability scores for the record's field values to calculate thelikelihood that the record is a bad data record based on the record'ssimilarity to bad data records, such as grave-yarded business contactrecords. For each record, the database system may combine the likelihoodthat a record includes good data with the likelihood that the recordincludes bad data to calculate a record reliability score for updatessubmitted to the record.

A user-submitted update either creates, modifies, or deletes data in adata record's fields, such as the first name, the last name, the companyname, and the industry for a business contact. The database system maygenerate a set of features for a record's fields and evaluate some fieldvalues, by evaluating the corresponding features, independent of otherfield values in the same record, as a field value may depend on one ormore field values in the same record. For example, a good data record ismore likely than a bad data record to have the area code for a businesscontact's phone number belonging to the city of the business contact'sstreet address, but this likelihood derives from the fact that the areacode and the city are not independent of each other. Most of thefeatures are the same as their corresponding field values. However, afeature may combine data from multiple field values, such as a featurethat takes the first name, last name, and email address, and returns anidentifier for a pattern, if any, indicated by the email address. Arecord may also have field values which the database system does not usefor features.

The database system may use a naïve Bayes model, which assumes that allfield values in the same data record are independent of each other, toevaluate the reliability of the user-submitted updates to field valuesbased on a comparison to previous user-submitted updates to field valuesof known good or bad data records. The database system may improve thereliability evaluations by storing additional about the data records,such as information stored in tables which identify area code/cityconsistency and email format consistency with the domain, or informationthat indicates whether a field value, such as title, has been added bymany users or added by just a few users. The database system may take asample of existing records over a time period, such as the last twoyears, that matches the database system's current distribution of gooddata records and bad data records. For each field value in each record,the database system may calculate the conditional probability that thefield value includes good data, producing a reliability score for eachfield value in each record.

Having calculated the update score, the database system calculates auser score based on update scores, including the update score,calculated for corresponding updates submitted by the user, block 104.By way of example and without limitation, this can include the databasesystem accumulating all of the update reliability scores for the user,and dividing the accumulation of the update reliability scores by thenumber of updates submitted by the user to calculate the user'sreliability score. A block diagram of an example data structure forupdate scores and a user reliability score for processing user-submittedupdates based on user reliability scores is depicted in FIG. 2 anddescribed below in the description of FIG. 2. In addition, some of theuser's updates will be eventually evaluated by other users, such as whenbusiness contact records are purchased (corresponding updates evaluatedas completely reliable) or grave-yarded (corresponding updates evaluatedas completely unreliable). Egregiously bad updates, such asuser-submitted updates that add unnecessary punctuation, are alwaysevaluated as completely unreliable. In this way, the user reliabilityscore improves over time. The database system may maintain a userreliability score between 0 and 1 by averaging all user updates overtime. The database system can use the user reliability score to evaluatethe reliability of new user-submitted updates from the evaluated user.

After calculating the user score, the database system optionally adjuststhe update score and/or the user score based on the amount ofcorresponding updates submitted by the user, block 106. In embodiments,this can include the database system adjusting the update reliabilityscore and/or the user reliability score to account for the number ofupdates that a user has submitted, such that an initial reliable updatedoes not carry too much weight in calculating the update reliabilityscore and/or the user reliability score. The database system may use alogistic function based on the number of user updates, which discountsnew user reliability scores without growing out of bounds as the numberof user-submitted updates grows large. The system may use a logisticfunction like the following, where r is the user reliability score, u isthe update reliability score, n is the number of submissions, and f isthe logistic function:

u(1+r*f(n))/2,

where r*f(n−1) varies between 0 and 1, and r is initially 0.

Given a score that varies between 0 and 1, this logistic functionbecomes larger as the user reliability score becomes larger, therebyboosting or lowering the evaluation of the update reliability score.Although an example of a specific logistic function is described,another method may be used to adjust the user reliability score or theupdate reliability score based on the amount of corresponding updatessubmitted by the user.

After calculating and possibly adjusting the user score, the databasesystem processes the update based on the user score, block 108. Forexample and without limitation, this can include the database systemcalculating a user reliability score that is lower than a rejectionthreshold and rejecting the update submitted by the user for the addressfield in the business contact record. In another example, the databasesystem calculates a user reliability score that is higher than anacceptance threshold and accepts the update submitted by the user forthe address field in the business contact record. In yet anotherexample, the database system calculates a user reliability score that ishigher than the rejection threshold, but lower than the acceptancethreshold, and forwards the update submitted by the user for the addressfield in the business contact record for further evaluation by a systemadministrator. The thresholds may vary, depending on the importance ofthe record being updated, such that the database system may user ahigher acceptance threshold for business contact records which arefrequently purchased.

Processing the update based on the user score may be further based onthe update score. For example, although a reliable-appearing updatesubmitted for a record by a reliable user may be accepted, areliable-appearing update submitted for a record by an unreliable usermay be accepted, rejected, or further evaluated based on therelationship between the update score and the user reliability score,along with any corresponding thresholds. In another example, although anunreliable-appearing update submitted for a record by an unreliable usermay be rejected, an unreliable-appearing update from a normally reliableuser may be rejected, accepted, or further evaluated based on therelationship between the update score and the user reliability score,along with any corresponding thresholds.

The method 100 may be repeated as desired. Although this disclosuredescribes the blocks 102-108 executing in a particular order, the blocks102-108 may be executed in a different order. In other implementations,each of the blocks 102-108 may also be executed in combination withother blocks and/or some blocks may be divided into a different set ofblocks.

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example data structure 200 forupdate scores and a user reliability score for processing user-submittedupdates based on user reliability scores, under an embodiment. The datastructure 200 includes six update reliability scores calculated by thedatabase system for the six updates submitted by a user, and alsoincludes a user reliability score, which the database system calculatedas the average of the six update scores. As mentioned above in referenceto block 106, the database system may adjust the user reliability scoreand/or the update reliability scores based on the number of updatessubmitted by the user.

System Overview

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an environment 310 wherein anon-demand database service might be used. The environment 310 mayinclude user systems 312, a network 314, a system 316, a processorsystem 317, an application platform 318, a network interface 320, atenant data storage 322, a system data storage 324, program code 326,and a process space 328. In other embodiments, the environment 310 maynot have all of the components listed and/or may have other elementsinstead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

The environment 310 is an environment in which an on-demand databaseservice exists. A user system 312 may be any machine or system that isused by a user to access a database user system. For example, any of theuser systems 312 may be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, alaptop computer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices.As illustrated in FIG. 3 (and in more detail in FIG. 4) the user systems312 might interact via the network 314 with an on-demand databaseservice, which is the system 316.

An on-demand database service, such as the system 316, is a databasesystem that is made available to outside users that do not need tonecessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the databasesystem, but instead may be available for their use when the users needthe database system (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demanddatabase services may store information from one or more tenants storedinto tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant databasesystem (MTS). Accordingly, the “on-demand database service 316” and the“system 316” will be used interchangeably herein. A database image mayinclude one or more database objects. A relational database managementsystem (RDMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval ofinformation against the database object(s). The application platform 318may be a framework that allows the applications of the system 316 torun, such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system.In an embodiment, the on-demand database service 316 may include theapplication platform 318 which enables creation, managing and executingone or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demanddatabase service, users accessing the on-demand database service viauser systems 312, or third party application developers accessing theon-demand database service via the user systems 312.

The users of the user systems 312 may differ in their respectivecapacities, and the capacity of a particular user system 312 might beentirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the currentuser. For example, where a salesperson is using a particular user system312 to interact with the system 316, that user system 312 has thecapacities allotted to that salesperson. However, while an administratoris using that user system 312 to interact with the system 316, that usersystem 312 has the capacities allotted to that administrator. In systemswith a hierarchical role model, users at one permission level may haveaccess to applications, data, and database information accessible by alower permission level user, but may not have access to certainapplications, database information, and data accessible by a user at ahigher permission level. Thus, different users will have differentcapabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application anddatabase information, depending on a user's security or permissionlevel.

The network 314 is any network or combination of networks of devicesthat communicate with one another. For example, the network 314 may beany one or any combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide areanetwork), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network,star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred toas the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in manyof the examples herein. However, it should be understood that thenetworks that the one or more implementations might use are not solimited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

The user systems 312 might communicate with the system 316 using TCP/IPand, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, the user systems 312 might include an HTTP client commonlyreferred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages toand from an HTTP server at the system 316. Such an HTTP server might beimplemented as the sole network interface between the system 316 and thenetwork 314, but other techniques might be used as well or instead. Insome implementations, the interface between the system 316 and thenetwork 314 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robinHTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTPrequests evenly over a plurality of servers. At least as for the usersthat are accessing that server, each of the plurality of servers hasaccess to the MTS' data; however, other alternative configurations maybe used instead.

In one embodiment, the system 316, shown in FIG. 3, implements aweb-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, inone embodiment, the system 316 includes application servers configuredto implement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and fromthe user systems 312 and to store to, and retrieve from, a databasesystem related data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenantsystem, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physicaldatabase object, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that dataof one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants sothat one tenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unlesssuch data is expressly shared.

In certain embodiments, the system 316 implements applications otherthan, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, the system 316may provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom)applications, including a CRM application. User (or third partydeveloper) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may besupported by the application platform 318, which manages creation,storage of the applications into one or more database objects andexecuting of the applications in a virtual machine in the process spaceof the system 316.

One arrangement for elements of the system 316 is shown in FIG. 3,including the network interface 320, the application platform 318, thetenant data storage 322 for tenant data 323, the system data storage 324for system data 325 accessible to the system 316 and possibly multipletenants, the program code 326 for implementing various functions of thesystem 316, and the process space 328 for executing MTS system processesand tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part ofan application hosting service. Additional processes that may execute onthe system 316 include database indexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 3 include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each of the user systems 312 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. Each of the user systems 312 typically runs an HTTP client,e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of the user systems 312 to access, process and view information, pagesand applications available to it from the system 316 over the network314. Each of the user systems 312 also typically includes one or moreuser interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touchpad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphicaluser interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., amonitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms,applications and other information provided by the system 316 or othersystems or servers. For example, the user interface device may be usedto access data and applications hosted by the system 316, and to performsearches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact withvarious GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussed above,embodiments are suitable for use with the Internet, which refers to aspecific global internetwork of networks. However, it should beunderstood that other networks can be used instead of the Internet, suchas an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), anon-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one embodiment, each of the user systems 312 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, the system316 (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present)and all of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as the processor system 317, which may include an IntelPentium® processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. Acomputer program product embodiment includes a machine-readable storagemedium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be usedto program a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Computer code for operating and configuring the system 316 tointercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein are preferably downloaded andstored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof,may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory mediumor device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on anymedia capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotatingmedia including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk(DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, andmagnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs),or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/ordata. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is wellknown, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection asis well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communicationmedium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as arewell known.

It will also be appreciated that computer code for implementingembodiments can be implemented in any programming language that can beexecuted on a client system and/or server or server system such as, forexample, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™, JavaScript,ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many otherprogramming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™ is atrademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to one embodiment, the system 316 is configured to providewebpages, forms, applications, data and media content to the user(client) systems 312 to support the access by the user systems 312 astenants of the system 316. As such, the system 316 provides securitymechanisms to keep each tenant's data separate unless the data isshared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in closeproximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a singlebuilding or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote fromone another (e.g., one or more servers located in city A and one or moreservers located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include oneor more logically and/or physically connected servers distributedlocally or across one or more geographic locations. Additionally, theterm “server” is meant to include a computer system, includingprocessing hardware and process space(s), and an associated storagesystem and database application (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well knownin the art. It should also be understood that “server system” and“server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the databaseobject described herein can be implemented as single databases, adistributed database, a collection of distributed databases, a databasewith redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc.,and might include a distributed database or storage network andassociated processing intelligence.

FIG. 4 also illustrates the environment 310. However, in FIG. 4 elementsof the system 316 and various interconnections in an embodiment arefurther illustrated. FIG. 4 shows that the each of the user systems 312may include a processor system 312A, a memory system 312B, an inputsystem 312C, and an output system 312D. FIG. 4 shows the network 314 andthe system 316. FIG. 4 also shows that the system 316 may include thetenant data storage 322, the tenant data 323, the system data storage324, the system data 325, a User Interface (UI) 430, an ApplicationProgram Interface (API) 432, a PL/SOQL 434, save routines 436, anapplication setup mechanism 438, applications servers 4001-400N, asystem process space 402, tenant process spaces 404, a tenant managementprocess space 410, a tenant storage area 412, a user storage 414, andapplication metadata 416. In other embodiments, the environment 310 maynot have the same elements as those listed above and/or may have otherelements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

The user systems 312, the network 314, the system 316, the tenant datastorage 322, and the system data storage 324 were discussed above inFIG. 3. Regarding the user systems 312, the processor system 312A may beany combination of one or more processors. The memory system 312B may beany combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or longterm memory. The input system 312C may be any combination of inputdevices, such as one or more keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners,cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. The output system 312D may beany combination of output devices, such as one or more monitors,printers, and/or interfaces to networks.

As shown by FIG. 4, the system 316 may include the network interface 320(of FIG. 3) implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 400, theapplication platform 318, the tenant data storage 322, and the systemdata storage 324. Also shown is the system process space 402, includingindividual tenant process spaces 404 and the tenant management processspace 410. Each application server 400 may be configured to accesstenant data storage 322 and the tenant data 323 therein, and the systemdata storage 324 and the system data 325 therein to serve requests ofthe user systems 312. The tenant data 323 might be divided intoindividual tenant storage areas 412, which can be either a physicalarrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenantstorage area 412, the user storage 414 and the application metadata 416might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to the userstorage 414. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organizationthat is a tenant might be stored to the tenant storage area 412. The UI430 provides a user interface and the API 432 provides an applicationprogrammer interface to the system 316 resident processes to usersand/or developers at the user systems 312. The tenant data and thesystem data may be stored in various databases, such as one or moreOracle™ databases.

The application platform 318 includes the application setup mechanism438 that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into the tenant datastorage 322 by the save routines 436 for execution by subscribers as oneor more tenant process spaces 404 managed by the tenant managementprocess 410 for example. Invocations to such applications may be codedusing the PL/SOQL 434 that provides a programming language styleinterface extension to the API 432. A detailed description of somePL/SOQL language embodiments is discussed in commonly owned U.S. Pat.No. 7,730,478 entitled, METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TODEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA A MULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, byCraig Weissman, filed Sep. 21, 2007, which is incorporated in itsentirety herein for all purposes. Invocations to applications may bedetected by one or more system processes, which manages retrieving theapplication metadata 416 for the subscriber making the invocation andexecuting the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 400 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to the system data 325 and the tenant data323, via a different network connection. For example, one applicationserver 4001 might be coupled via the network 314 (e.g., the Internet),another application server 400N-1 might be coupled via a direct networklink, and another application server 400N might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 400 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 400 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 400. In one embodiment, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 400 and the user systems 312 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 400. In one embodiment, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 400. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 400, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 400. In thismanner, the system 316 is multi-tenant, wherein the system 316 handlesstorage of, and access to, different objects, data and applicationsacross disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses the system 316 to manage theirsales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data,customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data,etc., all applicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in thetenant data storage 322). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since allof the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report,transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a usersystem having nothing more than network access, the user can manage hisor her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems.For example, if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customerhas Internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain criticalupdates as to that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive inthe lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by the system 316 that areallocated at the tenant level while other data structures might bemanaged at the user level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenantsincluding possible competitors, the MTS should have security protocolsthat keep data, applications, and application use separate. Also,because many tenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintaintheir own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additionalfunctions that may be implemented in the MTS. In addition touser-specific data and tenant specific data, the system 316 might alsomaintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data.Such system level data might include industry reports, news, postings,and the like that are sharable among tenants.

In certain embodiments, the user systems 312 (which may be clientsystems) communicate with the application servers 400 to request andupdate system-level and tenant-level data from the system 316 that mayrequire sending one or more queries to the tenant data storage 322and/or the system data storage 324. The system 316 (e.g., an applicationserver 400 in the system 316) automatically generates one or more SQLstatements (e.g., one or more SQL queries) that are designed to accessthe desired information. The system data storage 324 may generate queryplans to access the requested data from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be usedinterchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more datacategories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema.Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for eachcategory defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may includea table that describes a customer with fields for basic contactinformation such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields forinformation such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In somemulti-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be providedfor use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standardentities might include tables for Account, Contact, Lead, andOpportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should beunderstood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeablyherein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. Pat. No. 7,779,039, filedApr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields in a Multi-TenantDatabase System”, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference,teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well ascustomizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. Incertain embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows are storedin a single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiplelogical tables per organization. It is transparent to customers thattheir multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or thattheir data may be stored in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

While one or more implementations have been described by way of exampleand in terms of the specific embodiments, it is to be understood thatone or more implementations are not limited to the disclosedembodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover variousmodifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims shouldbe accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all suchmodifications and similar arrangements.

1. A system for processing user-submitted updates based on userreliability scores, the apparatus comprising: one or more processors;and a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a plurality ofinstructions, which when executed, cause the one or more processors to:calculate an update score, for an update submitted by a user, based on asimilarity of a field value provided by the update to a plurality ofcorresponding field values in a plurality of identified records;calculate a user score based on a plurality of update scores, comprisingthe update score, calculated for a plurality of corresponding updatessubmitted by the user; and process the update based on the user score.2. The system of claim 1, wherein the update comprises one of a fieldvalue creation, a field value modification, and a field value deletion.3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of identified records isone of a plurality of active records and a plurality of inactiverecords.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein processing the update basedon the user score is further based on the update score, and comprisesone of rejecting the update if the user score is less than a firstthreshold, accepting the update if the user score is greater than asecond threshold, and forwarding the update for evaluation if the userscore is between the first threshold and the second threshold.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, comprising further instructions, which when executed,cause the one or more processors to adjust at least one of the updatescore and the user score based on an amount of the plurality ofcorresponding updates submitted by the user.
 6. A computer programproduct comprising computer-readable program code to be executed by oneor more processors when retrieved from a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium, the program code including instructions to:calculate an update score, for an update submitted by a user, based on asimilarity of a field value provided by the update to a plurality ofcorresponding field value s in a plurality of identified records;calculate a user score based on a plurality of update scores, comprisingthe update score, calculated for a plurality of corresponding updatessubmitted by the user; and process the update based on the user score.7. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the update comprisesone of a field value creation, a field value modification, and a fieldvalue deletion.
 8. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein theplurality of identified records is one of a plurality of active recordsand a plurality of inactive records.
 9. The computer program product ofclaim 6, wherein processing the update based on the user score isfurther based on the update score, and comprises one of rejecting theupdate if the user score is less than a first threshold, accepting theupdate if the user score is greater than a second threshold, andforwarding the update for evaluation if the user score is between thefirst threshold and the second threshold.
 10. The computer programproduct of claim 6, wherein the program code comprises furtherinstructions to adjust at least one of the update score and the userscore based on an amount of the plurality of corresponding updatessubmitted by the user.
 11. A method for processing user-submittedupdates based on user reliability scores, the method comprising:calculating an update score, for an update submitted by a user, based ona similarity of a field value provided by the update to a plurality ofcorresponding field value s in a plurality of identified records;calculating a user score based on a plurality of update scores,comprising the update score, calculated for a plurality of correspondingupdates submitted by the user; and processing the update based on theuser score.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the update comprises oneof a field value creation, a field value modification, and a field valuedeletion.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein the plurality ofidentified records is one of a plurality of active records and aplurality of inactive records.
 14. The method of claim 11, whereinprocessing the update based on the user score is further based on theupdate score, and comprises one of rejecting the update if the userscore is less than a first threshold, accepting the update if the userscore is greater than a second threshold, and forwarding the update forevaluation if the user score is between the first threshold and thesecond threshold.
 15. The method of claim 1, the method furthercomprising adjusting at least one of the update score and the user scorebased on an amount of the plurality of corresponding updates submittedby the user.
 16. A system for processing user-submitted updates based onuser reliability scores, the system comprising: a processor-basedapplication, which when executed on a computer, will cause the processorto: calculate an update score, for an update submitted by a user, basedon a similarity of a field value provided by the update to a pluralityof corresponding field values in a plurality of identified records;calculate a user score based on a plurality of update scores, comprisingthe update score, calculated for a plurality of corresponding updatessubmitted by the user; and process the update based on the user score.17. The system of claim 16, wherein the update comprises one of a fieldvalue creation, a field value modification, and a field value deletion.18. The system of claim 16, wherein the plurality of identified recordsis one of a plurality of active records and a plurality of inactiverecords.
 19. The system of claim 16, wherein processing the update basedon the user score is further based on the update score, and comprisesone of rejecting the update if the user score is less than a firstthreshold, accepting the update if the user score is greater than asecond threshold, and forwarding the update for evaluation if the userscore is between the first threshold and the second threshold.
 20. Thesystem of claim 16, the method further comprising transmitting code toadjust at least one of the update score and the user score based on anamount of the plurality of corresponding updates submitted by the user.